Daughter works for a dog day care centre for a couple of months on a flexible hours basis with a minimum of 6 hours a week. At first the boss was always praising her then a new person started full time and then my daughter fell out of favour and got told she wasn’t cleaning properly because she forgot once to clean the dashboard of the van. Her work with the dogs was not criticised. She wasn’t getting payslips and she asked for them…she has been bullied quite badly, eg arriving for work to a locked door, etc etc.

Does she just have to take it on the chin?

The place was dangerous in some ways as there was several serious incidents of staff being bitten and an industrial accident but she loved her work and the dogs loved her. She did sign a contract but does not have a copy. No disciplinary action. Just randomly told she was fired. Its a very small business, just a handful of staff.

In her naivety she just signed the contract, is dyslexic so did not read it and doesn’t know what it contained. I will speak to ACAS regardless. No one got payslips. The pay was rarely on time and sometimes short. But the job was local and the hours suited her and she was happy and talked about it non stop at home and it is heartbreaking as I don’t know where she goes from here and worried about references.

If she has only been working for them for a couple of months, they can say that she didn’t complete her probationary period satisfactorily, even if she didn’t know anything about a probationary period. She was probably too good for this cowboy outfit in reality and they may have been worried that she was seeing too much wrong with the place, in terms of non-existent risk management, etc.
Unfortunately employment rights don’t accrue until you have worked 2 yrs full time, or the equivalent part-time.

Her best bet for a reference is to volunteer with somewhere like Dogs’ Trust. She won’t need to tell DT about her recent experience but their reference will stand her in good stead for another job in the future.

If she is dyslexic, she may be able to get funding for college courses to help her into employment, if that is what she wants to do.

Probably have to suck it up and move on – depends how long she was there. If less than 2 years then tough.

But if you have concerns that it may be unsafe then talk to your local council, if you feel the dogs welfare is compromised then talk to RSPCA/SSPCA

“The place was dangerous in some ways as there was several serious incidents of staff being bitten and an industrial accident” It’s a criminal offence not to report an industrial accident at work – http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg453.pdf if it falls into reportable incidents

I don’t think she has a leg to stand on, minimum hours for a couple of months just sounds like casual help. There is also no point saying all that’s wrong with the place after she’s left either as it just sounds like sour grapes and she was presumably happy prior to them asking her to leave .

Chalk it up to a bad experience and be well rid of the place , it’s given her a couple of months experience to put on her CV if nothing else.

the owner’s own dog bit the supervisor the day before my daughter got asked to leave, the industrial accident was also the day before where a volunteer got his fingers crushed after a concrete block fell on them. So yes she was happy in her job, she loved the dogs she worked with but wasn’t happy about not getting payslips. She was working much more than 6 hours every week, was there most days some days were full.

I might be wrong, ACAS will confirm, but regardless of job security I think an employee is entitled to the same notice as the interval they are paid – weekly = weeks notice, monthly = month’s notice etc.
And they should by law have an accident book which the HSE have the right to inspect.

It sounds as if the buisness owner is worried that the HSE may come asking questions, presuming that the person with the crushed finger told the hospital that the injury happened at work, and the other person, if they also went to hospital with the bite. My guess is that they will not want anyone telling the HSE how they run the place. I think if I were the OP (as the mother of the employee) I would be contacting trading standards and HMRC, as I would question if all relevant tax and NI has been paid. Any business which doesn’t pay its employees on time is obviously not keeping up with all its financial and legal commitments.

I’d remind her that in life, and when one door closes, then another and vastly better door ALWAYS opens; we may have to wait a while, but it’s always the case. My BiL is also dyslexic and he teaches English so it’s no bar to furthering any ambition.

If your daughter feels inclined to stick two fingers in the air (or one if she’s so inclined) and start her own dog walking business?

ACAS, though a useful service always seem to support the prevailing legal preference at the time depending upon whether employers or workers are currently taking precedence. Currently, the bias is in favour of employers.

If we report the busniess to HMRC H and S etc they will know for sure it was us. The employer is an odd lady who is very casual but as most of the dogs are picked up by the works van the owners never see them at the centre so don’t know anything about what happens there.

As she has been fired, there is absolutely no point in giving this company as a reference on applications for any future job. Just encourage her to get some more recent experience somewhere where she can get a reference, whether that’s college, paid employment or volunteering.

ETA: there are lots of people wanting to work with animals, but most of them never do it, because as you’ve seen a lot of it is the unregulated, illegal or barely legal side of employment. The best thing would be to look at all kinds of jobs not just animal related ones.

@orange I work in employment law, and this is wrong. A probation period can only apply if it’s stated in your contract, was agreed orally (which would be hard to prove) or was otherwise agreed to in writing.

OP your daughter can ask for a copy of her contract from her employer. I’m guessing it will have a one month notice period clause or similar, so if they’ve dismissed her without giving notice (or without paying in lieu of notice if her contract applies) then they’d be in breach of contract. She can speak to CAB or Acas for free legal advice.

@ellen But OP’s daughter doesn’t know what was in her contract! Does it really sound as if this employer is going to do things by the book? Because it really doesn’t sound like it to me, I am guessing that they will say that she was only employed on a casual basis anyway.
Better, imho, to put this behind her and move on to finding voluntary work, or something else which she can get a reference from, while OP reports the outfit to any-one she can think of so that no-one else is treated in the same way in future.

When one of my daughters were younger they were dismissed without reason. Mine didn’t want a fuss but if you want to make one I would contact HMRC to make sure they have paid all the NI and PAYE, which your daughter should have been registered for. I once worked for someone who had not paid mine, and they had to pay it all. Also check she got her holiday pay, this is also a legal requirement.
As other people have said if you can get her on a course get her assessed for dyslexia, my daughter got a free Apple Mac and extra help. We didn’t even know she was dyslexic until then, I have since discovered I probably am, which explains a lot. They get a few brownie points for having a student with a disability.
By the sounds of it she is best out of there, and that’s the way to look at it. If she walk a dog or pet sits for anyone , ask them for a reference when she applies for a job or a course.
I makes me really mad when young people are treated like this. They get away with it because youngsters want to be independent and do not want their parents interfering or nagging.

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